Our inherent dignity as human beings derives from a higher principle

We should treasure our freedom as one of our most precious possessions. The
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which has now been accepted as law by
almost every country in the world, establishes the right of every human person
to be free from all forms of slavery.

"Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth
in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex,
language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin,
property, birth or other status . . . . " (art.2).

"Everyone has the right to life, liberty and the security of
person" (art.3).

" No one shall be held in slavery or servitude. Slavery and the
slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms" (art.4).

We are so used to enjoying such freedoms that we forget the thousands of
years it has taken us as a human race to acquire them. Around 1800, for
instance, most governments could still arrest and imprison subjects indefinitely
without proven charges. Women had few public rights. Workers were totally at the
mercy of their employers. Slavery thrived in all Muslim States. And European
slave traders captured around 80,000 slaves a year in Africa, transported them
to America under appalling conditions and sold them there into a life of total
servitude and dependence.

Alexander Falconbridge, a surgeon who served on slave ships, has left us a
contemporary record (1790 AD) of how slaves were treated. During the day they
were chained, stark naked, to the railing of the deck. At night hundreds were
packed in small spaces, manacled to each other, with no ventilation and no
proper toilets. They were mercilessly scourged at the least protest. Many died
from suffocation, dysentry and exhaustion (see: Ch. and D.PLUMMER, Slavery:
the Anglo-American Involvement, Newton Abbot 1973, pp. 66- 67).

Among the forces which eventually put a halt to these inhuman practices was
the growing sense of responsibility among European leaders. The slave traders
excused their actions on all kinds of grounds: some races were inferior by
nature and suited for slave work, they said, slavery was an economic necessity,
and so on. But William Wilberforce tirelessly campaigned for the abolition of
the slave trade. In 1789 he put its atrocities before the British House of
Commons and added:

"There are principles that go beyond politics. When I
reflect on the command which says: `Thou shalt do no murder', believing the
authority to be divine, how can I dare to set up any reasoning against it?

"And when we think of eternity, and of the future consequences of all
human conduct, what is there in this life that should make any man contradict
the dictates of his conscience, the principles of justice, the laws of religion,
and of God.

"The nature of this trade and all its circumstances are now open to us.
We can no longer plead ignorance. We cannot evade it. It is now an object placed
before us. We cannot pass it. We may spurn it. We may kick it out of our way,
but we cannot turn aside so as to avoid seeing it; for it is brought now so
directly before our eyes that this House must decide, and must justify to all
the world, and to their own consciences, the rectitude of the grounds and
principles of their decisions (see: H.PEDERSON (Ed), The World's Great
Speeches, New York 1965, pp. 212 - 219).

It was only in 1807 that the Bill forbidding slavery in all British
Dominions was finally adopted. It was a victory of conscience, that would be
duplicated by similar victories in other parts of the world.

Slavery was abolished in French colonies in 1848 and in the USA in 1865.
Legal slavery continued to exist in Saudi Arabia till 1964; among the Tuareg
Berbers of the Sahara until 1973.

The source of human dignity

Today slavery persists in modern forms. Girls are sold into prostitution.
Domestic slaves are kept in some Muslim countries. Bonded labourers are so tied
to their masters that they enjoy virtually no freedom at all. But these
aberrations are prosecuted as real crimes. Slavery is no longer tolerated by the
world community. The Universal Declaration indicates the reason: it bases human
freedom on the inherent dignity and inalienable rights of all
members of the human family. Human dignity is its ultimate principle.

It could be argued that we are free because other people give us our
freedom. It would then be just a question of everybody doing everybody else a
favour. We would receive our freedom by common agreement. But that is obviously
not how the Universal Declaration sees it. It speaks of `inherent dignity' and
`inalienable rights'.

"Recognition of the inherent dignity and of the
equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the
foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world."

The International Law that protects human rights clearly bases human freedom
on some worth we possess in ourselves, as human beings. What is that worth?

The Declaration also refers to our human conscience. "Disregard and
contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged
the conscience of humankind", it says. By what norms does our conscience
judge? They are norms that transcend the capricious rules laid down by
individuals, communities, nations and religious denominations.

The Declaration states that "everyone has duties to the community in
which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible".
Again, are these duties just imposed on us by other people? Are they not of
necessity duties that derive from higher principles?

Suppose for a moment that the United Nations is the highest human authority
on earth. It could then be argued that our human freedom and basic human rights
are given to us by the United Nations. This in turn would then imply that the
United Nations might, at some future date, exclude these rights from a
particular race, for instance from the Aboriginals in Australia or the Bushmen
in South Africa.

A higher principle

This is not so difficult to imagine. In 1921, the seniormost archaeologist
in the United States, Henry Fairfield Osborn, presided over the Second
International Eugenics Congress in New York. Eugenics was a widely popular
movement at the time. It held that some races are genetically superior to
others. The interests of humanity are served best by breeding superior people
and by preventing those who are inferior or unfit, from reproducing.

Osborn also opposed immigration into the United States of Asians, Italians,
Greeks or Slavs from Eastern Europe. Racial purity should be promoted to halt
the degeneration that would inevitably result in national decline, genetic
suicide and extinction.

"In the United States we are slowly waking to the
consciousness that education and environment do not fundamentally alter racial
values. We are engaged in a serious struggle to maintain our historic republican
institutions through barring the entrance of those who are unfit to share the
duties and responsibilities of our well-founded government. The true spirit of
American democracy that all men are born with equal rights and duties has been
confused with the political sophistry that all men are born with equal character
and ability to govern themselves and others, and with the educational sophistry
that education and environment will offset the handicap of heredity."

Osborn, who was the director of the Museum of Natural History in New York,
arranged the exhibits of human evolution in such a way that it became a story of
human decline by the intermarriage of such superior races as the Cro-Magnon with
the dull-witted Neanderthals. The lessons for eugenics were explicitly pointed
out in many exhibits (see: R.RAINGER, An Agenda for Antiquity, Alabama
1994.>

Suppose that in the future the United Nations would be dominated by leaders
who think as Osborn did. They might believe it to be their duty to strengthen
the human family by a judicious ethnic isolation of `inferior' races or by
prescribing birth control for all those deemed unfit. Would they have the
authority to do so, if the majority of the members of the United Nations were to
support them?

The present Universal Declaration of Human Rights clearly says No.
Human beings have an inherent dignity. People have inalienable rights, rights
which can not be taken away by other human beings, of whatever authority they
are.

The Universal Declaration therefore unequivocally admits that human
dignity and human freedom derive from a higher principle - which, by
implication, can only be God.

The text in this lesson is from How to Make Sense of God by John Wijngaards, Sheed & Ward, Kansas City 1995. Tom Adcock designed the cartoons. The Catholic Press Association of the United States and Canada awarded the book a prize on 25 May 1996.

The video clips are from Journey to the Centre of Love (scriptwriter & executive producer John Wijngaards) which was awarded the GRAND PRIX by the Tenth International Catholic Film Festival held in Warsaw (18-23 May 1995). It also received the prestigious Chris Award at the International Film Festival, Columbus Ohio, in 1997.